Muddy ducks

[hillybesn]

I am a chicken owner who is new to ducks, I recently took on 6 muscovys we had a rain storm this past week and they have gotten horribly muddy, it is very cold her in New England so I am not very sure what to do about helping the get clean any advice would be helpful

 

[creaturelife]

you could just leave them or just bring them inside to the tub and clean them off

 

[newfoundland]

My ducks in 'old England' are also very muddy after all the recent rain. I find if I put lots of straw down for them and give them plenty of clean water they eventually clean themselves up. I often have to renew the straw daily, but every day they are a little cleaner. I am wary of washing them as the weather is very cold.

 

[montyhp]

You need to give them a source of water that they can wash in. Mine have a kiddie swimming pool that they can get in. They keep themselves very clean.

 

[creaturelife]

right now i have 2 kiddie swim pools cause i have one for my geese and the other for the ducks but they both share but its to cold they are both frozen so i just give my duck warm water every morning and night in there watering dish but they dont get in it i also found me a mallard egg today it was a green color but it froze and cracked o the joy of winter

 

[StruckBy]

When it was too cold for kiddie pools for my ducks (not because it was too cold for them to bathe; the water would freeze in just a few hours), I carried out jugs of water to put a couple inches in dishpans and/or litter pans at least once a week. I would try to do one pan for every two ducks or they would spend all their time (and spill all the water) jockeying for their chance rather than bathing.

 

[creaturelife]

i let my duck have it every day but they never get in them and wash off they just drink all the warm water up and i have 14 ducks and 6 egg in the bator so i have alot to keep them all lean but i still want more ducks

 

[Frank Phinster]

They usually clean themselves when they have the chance. As long as the feathers don't get sticky or otherwise compromised in their function or structur, the mud is more of a cosmetic problem. How badly do they look? Damaged plumage miht indicate furthr problems as Wet Feather.

 

[StruckBy]

i let my duck have it every day but they never get in them and wash off they just drink all the warm water up and i have 14 ducks and 6 egg in the bator so i have alot to keep them all lean but i still want more ducks

Do you mean that they are drinking ALL the water? If they are actually drinking all the water (or down to 1/2" or so), I'd be very worried that they simply aren't being provided with sufficient thawed water for drinking, let alone bathing. Ducks drink A LOT of water. When we lived in NV & had about a dozen ducks & 6 chickens (numbers went up & down depending on the year), we typically hauled out 4 gallons of water twice a day so 8 gallons total. At that rate, they had pretty much consumed all of the water with drinking & limited bathing in between the morning & evening watering. We used heated dog bowls in the winter so it stayed thawed.

 

[creaturelife]

they only drink about a gallon of it cause it takes a 2 gallons to fill it up and they only do that when i bring the warm water out of the mornings i have 14 soon to be 16 and more later on i think that they are drinking about a good amount for 14 ducks